Vom Täter fehlt jede Spur

Cesar Romero is an American PI trapped in London, waiting for the fog to lift so his plane can take off. He's passing the time in a bar with Lois Maxwell when a Peeler comes in to use the phone. A man has been struck and killed by a car. Miss Maxwell is convinced that it's her brother, so she and Romero go to look. It's as she feared. She is convinced he was murdered, but Romero's contacts in CID are retired, and there are lots of traffic accidents in Pea-soupers. So Romero and Miss Maxwell investigate.

It's a rather old-fashioned movie for 1952; hardly surprising, considering it's financed by Lippert and Hammer. Nonetheless, it's a nicely put together thriller, that leads to some unlikely places, with decent performances; director Sam Newfield, who spent too much of his career at PRC, demonstrates that given a decent script, he can turn out a good movie.

In the 1950s, many British film companies recruited American actors to star in their movies. Why? Well, the thought was that these British movies would be much easier to market to the States with a few familiar faces. Generally, these actors were second-tier...good actors but not the super-high priced ones.

"Lady in the Fog" is one of these British films with an American in the lead. Caersar Romero plays Philip O'Dell, a guy who is trying to leave the UK but whose flight is delayed due to fog. During this waiting period, he meets a woman and they talk. Soon she is alerted that her brother is dead...run over in the fog. Considering the brother's unsavory associates, she assumes his death was no accident. But there isn't much to go on or prove her theory, so the police don't take the case. Instead, O'Dell investigates the case himself....and opens up a huge can of worms, so to speak.

The film is very average....a decent story, decent acting. Nothing bad nor outstanding here...the definition of a nice time-passer.

Who is Margaret? What happened to her? She just vanished. That's the mystery here, and for all accounts, of all who knew her, she is irrevocably lost and can't be found ever again. She vanished in some fire before the war (13 years ago) with several casualties in some work shop for exclusive technical instruments outside London somewhere, when beautiful Bernadette O'Farrell happens to meet Cesar Romero (as a journalist on a brief visit from America) at a bar where he is mixing an explosive cocktail, whch actually explodes like a bomb. That's just one of a number of comic curiosities in this film, which turn up every now and then. There is a film studio also with a great famous film producer with a sense of humour constantly laughing, but eventually he stops that when he needs a few more drinks (Geoffrey Keen, for once not a police inspector). The grand finale is in that film studio, somewhat reminding of other similar finales in great thrillers, like for instance "The Intimate Stranger" with Richard Baseheart and "Charade" with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, but this was ten years before that. The problem with Bernadette O'Farrell is that her brother has just been killed in a car accident (as someone drove him over in the fog), and she knows it was not an accident, while she has no evidence. Cesar Romero gets as interested in this as in her, and they start examing and digging up graveyards, figuratively speaking, and eventually locate a murder committed 13 years ago. There are some scenes in an asylum where an ingenious inventor is kept locked up, the asylum telling all who ask for him that he is dead, which Cesar Romero eventually finds out he isn't. There are some intriguing reminiscences here of James Hilton and his "Random Harvest", to some degree probably inspired by that ace of a story, and so the intrigues go rolling on. It's a great thriller on a small scale and quite exciting and captivating enough to keep your interest up all the way. Finally the mystery of Margaret is resolved, as she proves to be the lady in the fog.

"Lady in the Fog" is a 1952 film starring Cesar Romero as an amateur detective, Philip O'Dell, an American currently in London. He helps a woman (Lois Maxwell) whom he meets in a bar - her brother was run down by a car in the heavy London fog, but she is convinced that it wasn't accidental. O'Dell investigates, and finds himself involved with an old case, a mental hospital, a filmmaker, and a nightclub.

Romero is a delightful actor, and this story has a lot of comedic elements which he acquits very well. He was very underrated, which is clear if one sees him in "The Captain from Castile" and "Julia Misbehaves." The story of "Lady in the Fog" is about as lame as it gets and pretty easy to figure out. It's made on the cheap. Romero is always worth seeing, though.

Journalist Cesar Romero (O'Dell) spends some time at the beginning of the film mixing up a cocktail which firstly explodes before you can drink it. That along with the sequences of the 'lady in the fog' of the title at the wheel of her car are the only memorable parts to the film. What a shame.

This film could have been good if the story had stuck with mystery and tension. Unfortunately, being British, guess what? We get comedy oom-pah-pah music when showing scenes with policemen and also with a travel booking clerk. It's just so funny?! The cast are all forgettable in this nonsense that seems complicated because it fails to keep you engaged.

Romero's career must have been at rock bottom at this point. Thankfully, Batman was on the horizon for him in the next decade.